1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card connector, and more particularly to a card connector with a metallic hinge socket supporting a pivotally mounted cover so as to provide a reliable support thereof.
2. Description of Related Art
IC (integrated circuit) cards are known in the art and contain artificial intelligence in the form of a memory circuit or other electronic program. A card reader is used to read the information or retrieve the memory stored on the card. IC cards are used in countless applications today, including video cameras, smart-phones, music players, ATMs, cable television decoders, toys, games, pc adapters and other electronic applications.
An electrical card connector, be mounted onto a printed circuit board, comprises a metal shield, an insulating housing, and a plurality of contacts received in the housing. The shield comprises a horizontal base and a pair of sidewalls extending from the opposite laterals of the base vertically and downwardly. A pair of pivoting portions respectively extends from the same end of the sidewalls, and a pair of pivoting grooves is defined at one end of the housing respectively engaging with the corresponding pivoting portion moveably. The shield could rotate between a first opening position and a second closing position, and then slide into a third locking position. At least a stopping tab is defined on the shield, and a locking portion is defined on the housing corresponding to the stopping tab. When the shield is driven to the third locking position, the locking portion engages with the stopping tab in a manner such that the shield could not move relative to the housing.
One problem of this type connector is that during using the card connector, once the shielding is rotated relative to the housing, the pivoting portion of the shielding will rub (or scrab) the pivoting groove of the housing to cause the insulating frame of the pivoting groove, especially the top frame of the pivoting groove getting weaker because the plastic material was lost resulted from friction, even destroy the pivoting groove eventually. Once this is happened, the reliability of the connector is negatively effected.
Hence, an improved card connector is highly desired to overcome the aforementioned disadvantages of the prior art.